BAROMETER • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Barometer

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/bərˈɑmɪtər/ Listen

noun

Barometer n. An instrument for determining the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and hence for judging of the probable changes of weather, or for ascertaining the height of any ascent. Note: The barometer was invented by Torricelli at Florence about 1643. It is made in its simplest form by filling a graduated glass tube about 34 inches long with mercury and inverting it in a cup containing mercury. The column of mercury in the tube descends until balanced by the weight of the atmosphere, and its rise or fall under varying conditions is a measure of the change in the atmospheric pressure. At the sea level its ordinary height is about 30 inches (760 millimeters). See Sympiesometer.

Aneroid barometer. See Aneroid barometer, under Aneroid.

Marine barometer, a barometer with tube contracted at bottom to prevent rapid oscillations of the mercury, and suspended in gimbals from an arm or support on shipboard.

Mountain barometer, a portable mercurial barometer with tripod support, and long scale, for measuring heights.

Siphon barometer, a barometer having a tube bent like a hook with the longer leg closed at the top. The height of the mercury in the longer leg shows the pressure of the atmosphere.

Wheel barometer, a barometer with recurved tube, and a float, from which a cord passes over a pulley and moves an index.

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Etymology of 'Barometer'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Barometer" Quotes from Famous Books

... and they supposed that they had consigned the question to eternal sleep. The committee, however, were too deeply attached to the cause, vanquished as they were, to desert it; and they knew, also, too well the barometer of public feeling, and the occasion of its fluctuations, to despair. In the year 1787, the members of the House of Commons, as well as the people, were enthusiastic in behalf of the abolition of the trade. In the year 1788, the fair enthusiasm of the former began to fade. In 1789, ...

— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... sound. It all seemed unnatural and uncanny, and this may have produced the frightened feeling that held us all that morning. While we were crossing over to Port Patterson a sharp wind rose from the north, and the barometer fell, so that we feared another edition of the storm. If our engines had broken down, which happened often enough, we should have been lost, for we were in a region where the swell came from two directions, and the waves were even higher than in the ...

— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... six-year-old Annie, as she stood in front of him critically, with her head on one side. Without knowing it, the child had come to look upon the state of the poor king's hat as emblematical of his state of mind. When it shut up like a closed concertina his barometer was low. ...

— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... carried with me no scientific instruments, except sometimes a common thermometer: I had no leisure for making excavations, for taking angles with a theodolite, or attending to the delicate care of any kind of barometer, being employed on ...

— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... the party could see that the strangers were showing him the instrument, and apparently explaining it to him. Pretty soon Rollo returned and reported that the two young men were students, and that the instrument which they had was a metallic barometer, and that they were measuring the height of the ...

— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

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